“It shorely is,” said Shif’less Sol.  “You ain’t much account for anything, Jim, but you kin cook a leetle bit.”

Long Jim smiled contentedly.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CHATEAU OF BEAULIEU

They noticed one day a high bluff shooting up on the eastern bank and running along for some distance.  It was clothed in dense green forest, and it was rather a welcome break in the monotony of the low shores.

“A big city will be built there some day,” said the prophetic Paul.[B]

“Now, Paul, why in tarnation do you say that?” exclaimed Tom Ross.

“Why, because it’s such a good place.  It’s a high hill on a great river so well suited to navigation, and it has a vast, rich country behind it.”

But Tom Ross shook his head.

“Seems to me, Paul,” he said, “that you’re bitin’ off a lot more’n you can chaw.  Things that are to happen a hundred years from now ain’t never happenin’ fur me.”

But Paul merely smiled and held to his opinion.

On the following day they tied up at a point, where the river began a sharp and wide curve around a long, narrow peninsula.  It was just about dark when they stopped and, as usual, they were able to run the boat into dense foliage at the margin, where not even the keenest eye could see it.

“We’ve got plenty of goose and duck left over from dinner,” said Henry, “so I’m thinking, Jim, that you’d better not light the fire on your bricks to-night.”

“All right,” replied Jim, “I don’t mind restin’.  I feel about ez lazy ez Sol Hyde looks.”

But Henry Ware had another and more important thing in mind.  His was the keenest eye of them all, and just before landing he had noticed to the southward and on the other side of the peninsula a faint, dark line against the edge of the sunset.  Few, even with an eye good enough to see it, would have taken it for anything but a wisp of cloud, but the physical sense of Henry Ware, so acute that it bordered upon intuition, was not deceived.

“Sol,” he said after they had eaten a little, “let’s walk across this neck of land and explore a bit.”

“It’s a dark night to be traveling,” said Paul.  But Henry only laughed.  Tom Ross may have had his suspicions, but he did not deem it worth while to say anything.  He knew that Henry and Shif’less Sol were quite competent to achieve any task that they might be undertaking.

Henry and Sol strolled carelessly into the bush, but before they had gone a dozen steps their whole manner changed.  Each became eager and alert.

“What is it, Henry?” asked Shif’less Sol.  “What have you seed?”

“Smoke! the smoke of a camp fire and it’s on the other side of this neck.  I think it’s the camp of Alvarez.  He must have been going more slowly than we thought.”

“We’ll soon find out,” said Shif’less Sol, as they advanced.